Mediagazer: The Digg Bang Theory: Can Betaworks Make a Run on Reddit? (Jessica Roy/Betabeat)

5:45 PM ET, August 1, 2012

Top News:

L'Affaire Lehrer: In Defense of Jonah — Amid the pile-on of denunciations of Jonah Lehrer, the New Yorker writer whose invention of a Bob Dylan quote was uncovered earlier this week by a contributor to the Tablet, his former editor steps up to defend him. I was Jonah Lehrer's editor at Seed magazine …

Discussion: Washington Post, The Daily Beast, Poynter, Stephen Baker, @dylanbyers, @ethanwsj, @sisario and Poynter

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Jonah Lehrer Was Going To Give A Speech On Ethics. It's Canceled, Obviously. — Jonah Lehrer's fabrications have already cost him his gig at The New Yorker and an unknown number of future book sales, and now they're cutting into his lucrative sideline as a speaker.

Discussion: NY Daily News, Media Decoder and EW.com

Craig Silverman / Poynter:

4 warning signs that a promising young writer may be developing dangerous habits — When it was merely a matter of self-plagiarism, some saw the coverage of Jonah Lehrer's transgressions as an overheated case of schadenfreude. — The fact that his previous books had previously come under fire …

Charles McGrath / New York Times:

Prolific, Elegant, Acerbic Writer — Gore Vidal, the elegant, acerbic all-around man of letters who presided with a certain relish over what he declared to be the end of American civilization, died on Tuesday at his home in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, where he moved in 2003, after years of living in Ravello, Italy.

Elaine Woo / Los Angeles Times:

Writer Gore Vidal, 86, has died — Gore Vidal, the iconoclastic writer, savvy analyst and imperious gadfly on the national conscience, has died. He was 86. Vidal died Tuesday at his home in the Hollywood Hills of complications of pneumonia, said nephew Burr Steers.

Discussion: LA Observed, Joe. My. God., Reuters, New York Times, @pareene, The Daily Beast, EW.com, Associated Press, Slate, New York Magazine and Boing Boing

Brent Lang / The Wrap:

NBC May Break Even on Summer Olympics Coverage — NBC may break even on its coverage of the Summer Olympics in London, NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke said Wednesday on a conference call with analysts. — “We're way ahead of where we thought we would be,” Burke said.

Discussion: Radio & Television …, Multichannel, Broadcasting & Cable and Reuters

Simon Dumenco / AdAge:
The Truth About #NBCFail — For Starters, NBC Is Not, Last Time I Checked, a Charity

Discussion: Poynter, Los Angeles Times and TechCrunch

John Ourand / SportsBusiness Daily:
Chairman Mark Lazarus defends NBC Sports' decision for tape delay

Discussion: AllThingsD, Media Decoder, TVSpy, Bleacher Report, Mediaite, The Big Lead, Deadspin, Poynter and Associated Press

Richard Sandomir / New York Times:
NBC Takes Steps to Avoid More Spoiler Promotions

Discussion: Daily Mail, NY Daily News, The Huffington Post and The Atlantic Online

Salvador Rodriguez / Los Angeles Times:
NBC Olympic live streams aren't live, Phelps flub indicates

Discussion: NBCUniversal and Mashable!

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

Time Warner's New Strategy For CNN: To Find a New Strategy — Does Time Warner have a programming strategy for CNN at the ready to replace the failed one pursued by departing worldwide president Jim Walton? It sure didn't sound like it on the media conglomerate's second-quarter earnings call.

Discussion: Adweek, Home Media Magazine, Capital New York, The Wrap and TVNewser

Michael Wolff / Guardian:

So, what's next for CNN? — Even CNN's outgoing chief Jim Walton isn't sure about its future. What, if anything, could possibly put the channel back on track? — After way too many years, last week CNN got rid of its long time CEO Jim Walton. Even Walton - who bills the leave-taking …

Discussion: paidContent and TVNewser

Daniel Gross / The Daily Beast:
CNN, NBC's “Today,” are big money makers. But you wouldn't know it.

Discussion: The Corsair and Erik Wemple

Gavin Polone / Vulture:

Apocalypse Nikki: Polone Challenges the Power of the Vengeful Finke — Starting about six years ago, I, like most people I know who work in the entertainment business, checked Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily first, before perusing the other trade websites for news on the industry in which I work.

Discussion: LA Observed and FishbowlLA

Guy Adams / The Independent:

Twitter backs down at last - but why did I get banned? — In the green room at CNN's Los Angeles studio last night, a producer asked for my reaction to the still-breaking news that Twitter had decided, in their words, to “un-suspend” my account. “I feel,” I replied, “like Nelson Mandela walking through …

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Poynter, Journalism.co.uk, MediaFile, BuzzFeed and Media Decoder

Mathew Ingram / GigaOM:
Is Twitter a publisher or a distributor? There's a crucial difference

Discussion: MediaShift, entertainment.time.com and Twitter Blog

Jessica Roy / Betabeat:

The Digg Bang Theory: Can Betaworks Make a Run on Reddit? — In the winter of 2004, soon after the husks of once-great dot-com startups had dried and shriveled, a 27-year-old college dropout named Kevin Rose deployed a barebones new site, simply named “Digg.” — It was one of the first social networks in existence.

Discussion: ZDNet, GigaOM, NetNewsCheck Latest, The Snitch, The Next Web, The Verge and Wired.co.uk

Frederic Lardinois / TechCrunch:
The New Digg Arrives Ahead Of Schedule, Features Tight Facebook And Twitter Integration

Discussion: VentureBeat, Forbes, CNET, The Verge, Marketing Pilgrim, PandoDaily and NYT Bits

The Huffington Post:

2012 Election Gaffes Fuel Media Obsession, Leading To Scripted Campaigns — As Mitt Romney walked toward his motorcade Tuesday morning in Warsaw, Poland, Washington Post reporter Philip Rucker yelled a question in his direction: “What about your gaffes?” Rucker didn't specify which gaffes …

Discussion: CNN, The Hill and Politico

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

How the Financial Times achieved a digital milestone — Five years ago I recall listening to the Financial Times's chief executive, John Ridding, as he outlined his paper's digital strategy. It was under way by then, of course, but the FT was moving faster and more enthusiastically than many papers …

Discussion: CJR, The Verge and Media Week

Andrew Wallenstein / Variety:

Olympics streaming saps Netflix traffic — 25% drop could confirm Hastings' 3Q fears — It turns out Netflix may not have been paranoid after all about the threat posed by the Olympics to its streaming business. — Streaming activity for the Los Gatos, Calif.-based company dropped 25% …

Discussion: paidContent

Steve Myers / Poynter:

NAA list shows newspaper paywalls typically allow 11 free articles — Research conducted by the Newspaper Association of America shows that some news organizations, like Gannett, vary their paywall thresholds at different papers, while others, like Digital First, stick with the same number across them all.